a force, unintentionally, but of necessity, continually operating to raise all industrial effort to higher and better conditions: and herein we have an explanation of the economic phenomenon that, while the introduction of improved machinery economizes and supplements labor, it rarely or never reduces wages. One of the most curious features of the existing economic situation is the advocacy of the idea, and the degree of popular favor which has been extended to it, that a reduction of the hours of labor, enforced, if needs be, by statute, is a "natural means for increasing wages and promoting progress." "* This movement in favor of a shorter day of work is not, however, of recent origin, inasmuch as it has greatly commended itself to public sentiment in Great Britain and in the United States for many years, and more recently in a lesser degree in the states of continental Europe. But it is desirable to recognize that the early agitation in furtherance of this object, and the success which has attended it, was based on reasons very different from those which underlie the arguments of to-day. Thus, in England and on the Continent, the various factory acts by which the day's labor has been shortened, were secured by appealing to the moral sense of the community to check the overworking of women and children; or, in other words, most of such legislation has thus far been influenced by moral considerations, and has so commended itself by its results that there is probably no difference of opinion in civilized countries as to its desirability. But the form which this movement has of late assumed is entirely different. It is now economic, and not moral, and its final analysis is based on the assumption that the laborer can obtain more of wealth or comfort by working less. It would seem to need no elaborate argument to demonstrate the absurdity of this position. Production must precede consumption and enjoyment, and the only way in which the ability of everybody to consume and enjoy can be increased, is by increasing, so to speak, the output of the whole human family. If production be increased, the worker will necessarily receive a larger return; if diminished, he will necessarily get a smaller return. And it makes no difference whether the diminution be effected by reduction in the hours of work, or by less effective work, or by disuse of labor-saving machinery, or by other obstructive agencies. The result will inevitably be the same: there will be less to divide among the producers after the constantly diminishing returns of capital have been withdrawn. It will doubtless be urged that man's knowledge and control of the forces of Nature have increased to such an extent in recent years that almost any given industrial result can now be * "Wealth and Progress," by George Gunton. D. Appleton & Co., New York. effected with much less of physical effort than at any former period; and therefore a general and arbitrary reduction of the hours of labor, independent of what has already occurred and is further likely to occur through the quiet influence of natural agencies, is not only justifiable, but every way practicable. This would undoubtedly be true if mankind were content to live as their fathers did. But they are not so content. They want more, and this want is so progressive, that the satisfactions of today almost cease to be satisfactions on the morrow. But what "more" of abundance, comfort, and even luxury to the masses has been achieved-and its aggregate has not been small-has not been brought about by any diminution of labor, but has been due mainly to the fact that the labor set free by the utilization of natural forces has been re-employed, as it were, to produce them; or, in other words, recent material progress is more correctly defined by saying, that it consists in the attainment of greater results with a given expenditure of labor, rather than the attainment of former results with a diminished expenditure. Whether the present relation of production to consumption which it now seems necessary should be maintained, if the present status of abundance, wages, and prices is to be continued and further progress made, can be maintained with a diminished amount of labor, may not at present admit of a satisfactory answer. Production in excess of current demand, or overproduction, which has been and still is a feature of certain departments of industry, and which may seem to favor an affirmative answer, is certain to be a temporary factor, for nothing will long continue to be produced unless there is a demand for it at remunerative prices from those possessed of means to purchase and consume, and therefore can not be legitimately taken into account in forming an opinion on this subject; but, other than this, all available evidence indicates that the answer must be still in the negative. Thus, for example, the latest results of investigation by the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor Statistics show that during the year 1885 all the products of manufacture in that State could have been secured by steady work for 307 working days of 9'04 hours each, if this steady work could have been distributed equally among all the persons engaged in manufactures. But, to effect such an equitable distribution is at present almost impossible; and if it could be brought about, a reduction of the hours of labor to eight per day in such industries, as has been advocated by many, would reduce the present annual product of Massachusetts to the extent of more than one ninth. Apart, therefore, from the disastrous competition which would be invited from other States and countries where labor was more productive, to expect that under such a reduc tion of product the share at present apportioned to the workers, or, what is the same thing, the existing rates of wages could be maintained, seems utterly preposterous. It is not even too much to say that the very existence of multitudes would be endangered if the present energy of production were diminished twenty per cent. And in this connection how full of meaning is the following deduction which Mr. Atkinson finds warranted by investigation, namely: "That over a thousand millions' worth of product must be added every year and prices be maintained where they now are, in order that each person in the United States may have five cents more than he now does, or in order that each person engaged in any kind of gainful occupation may be able to obtain an increase in the rate of wages of fifteen cents a day. Great and undoubted, therefore, as have been the benefits accruing from machinery and labor-saving inventions, the margin that would needs be traversed in order to completely neutralize them by rendering human labor less efficient, is obviously a very narrow one." To which may be added that there is probably no country at the present time where the entire accumulated property would sell for enough to subsist its population in a frugal manner for a longer space than three years. The greatest of the gains that have accrued to the masses through recent material progress has been in the saving of their time; not so much in the sense of diminishing their hours of labor, as in affording them a greater opportunity for individual self-advancement than has ever before been possible. To clearly cómprehend this proposition, it is necessary to keep in view the fact that all men, with the exception of the comparatively few who inherit a competence, are born, as it were, into a condition of natural bondage or servitude. Bondage and servitude to what? To the necessity of earning their living by hard and continuous toil. "In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread," has been recorded as a divine injunction, and experience shows that a great majority of mankind, as the result of long years of toil, have never hitherto been able to command much more than a bare subsistence. In countries of even the highest civilization, where the accumulation of wealth is greatest and most equably divided, investigation has also led to the conclusion that ninety per cent at least of the population are never possessed of sufficient property at the time of their demise to require the services of an administrator. Now if, in the course of events, it has become possible, through a greater knowledge and control of the forces of Nature, to gain an average subsistence with much less of physical effort than ever before, what is the prospect thereby held out to the multitude, who, to secure as much, have heretofore been compelled to toil as long as strength and years would permit? The answer is, the certain prospect of emancipation from such unfavorable conditions. Thus, if eight-hours' labor will now give to an individual the subsistence or living, for the attainment of which ten, twelve, fourteen, or even more hours of labor were formerly (but not remotely) necessary, intelligent self-interest would seem to dictate. to him to work eight hours on account of subsistence, and then as many more hours as opportunity or strength will permit; and out of the gain for all such work not required by necessity, purchase his emancipation from toil before age has crippled his energies; or, if he prefers, let him surround himself as he lives, in a continually increasing proportion, with all those additional elements-material and intellectual-that make life better worth living. And, through the rapid withdrawals from the ranks of competitive labor, or the increased demand for the products of labor that would be thus occasioned, the number of the unemployed, by reason of lack of opportunity to labor, would be reduced to a minimum. And that these possibilities are already recognized and accepted by not a few of the great body of workers, is proved by the fact that the greater the opportunity to work by the piece, and the greater the latitude afforded to workmen to control their own time in connection with earnings, the greater the disinclination to diminish the hours of labor.* "No man," says a distinguished American, who from small beginnings has risen to high position, "ever achieved eminence who commenced by reducing his hours of labor to the smallest number per day, and no man ever worked very hard and attained fortune who did not look back on his working days as the happiest of his life." t * A recent writer, in describing certain factories in New England, where the work is mainly of this character, says: "The days are long for 'piece-work,' and the busy employés are indifferent to eight-hour rules. They reserve only light enough to find their way home, and at twilight they take up their line of march. At present they are earning from three to five dollars per day, according to their capacity." But, as illustrating further how labor treats labor, it is added: "The employés are union men, and they will not allow a single non-unionist to work; neither will they permit any boy under sixteen, or any man over twenty-one years of age, to learn the trade." + Another, whose life-experience has been similar, also thus aptly states the case: "I have often wondered how workers expect to get on upon eight hours a day. I can not do it. I have worked year after year twelve hours a day, and I know men in my vocation who have done so fourteen hours-not for eight hours' pay, but for fourteen hours' pay. Let a man who is getting day wages for day's work consider how many hours there are in the day. Suppose the day's work is even ten; allow two for meals-that makes twelve; allow nine for sleep and dressing, that makes twenty-one. There are three hours a day for getting on. That is clear profit. There is room for more profit to himself in those three hours than the profit to the employer on the ten hours of his working day. Three hours a day is eighteen in the week—nearly the equivalent of two clear days in the week, a hundred days in the year." The course of events, nevertheless, warrants mankind in expecting that the progress which has been made in recent years in diminishing the necessity for long hours of labor will be continued; but such progress will be permanent and productive of the highest good only so far as it is determined by natural agencies. "If the attempt is made to save the time of the masses by radical and artificial methods, leisure will become license; but, if they can be taught to save their own time, leisure, as already pointed out, will be opportunity." Probably the most signal feature of the recent economic transitions has been the extensive decline in the prices of most commodities; and as great material interests have been for a time thereby injuriously affected—commodities at reduced valuation not paying the same amount of debt as before the drift of popular sentiment seems to be to the effect that such a result has been in the nature of a calamity. Accordingly, a great variety of propositions and devices have been brought forward in recent years, and largely occupied the attention of the public in all civilized countries, which, in reality, have had for their object not merely the arrest of this decline, but even the restoration of prices to something like their former level; and in such a category the attempt to regulate artificially the relative values of the precious metals, the increasing restrictions on the freedom of exchanges, the stimulation of trade by bounties, the formation of "trusts," "syndicates," trade and labor organizations, and the like, may all be properly classed. But all such attempts, as Dr. Barth, of Berlin, has expressed it, "are nothing more than designs to lengthen the cloth by shortening the yard-stick." Decline and instability in prices, if occasioned by temporary and artificial agencies, are to be deprecated; but a decline in prices caused by greater economy and effectiveness in manufacture, and greater skill and economy in distribution, in place of being a calamity is a benefit to all, and a certain proof of an advance in civilization. The mere fact that the general fall of prices which has occurred has been attended with an almost simultaneous and universal increase in the consumption of the necessaries of life and other commodities, is conclusive not only of a great improvement in the condition of the masses, but also that all attempts to retard or reverse this movement by governmental interference or individual organizations, are the worst possible economic policy. In Great Britain alone the decline in the price of meats and cereals between 1872 and 1886 is estimated to have resulted in producing an annual saving to each artisan consumer of $1.95 per head in meat and $3.75 per head in wheat, or an aggregate on 25,000,000 consumers of $142,500,000 per annum. At the same time, and very curiously, investiga |